Review: JEEVES TAKES CHARGE, Charing Cross Theatre
Photo credit: Craig Fuller
First seen in 1980 with Edward Duke, Jeeves Takes Charge has been revived by original director and co-adaptor Hugh Wooldridge. Playing all the characters this time round is Sam Harrison (with alternate Rupert Sadler performing on Thursdays). First seen at the Theatre Royal Bath in 2024, the production has now opened at the Charing Cross Theatre, with the programme still featuring the Clive Francis caricature (and the artist in the audience).
Using the 1916 short story of Jeeves being interviewed and then employed by Bertie Wooster as a starting point (and title), the piece then goes on to incorporate key moments from the Wodehouse oeuvre including the Fink-Nottle speech to a grammar school and Bertie’s own speech to a girls’ school, as arranged by Jeeves. These lend themselves particularly well to dramatisation, though some of the other set pieces are slightly less suited to portrayal by a single performer, however talented. Surprisingly, we meet the bossy Aunt Dahlia but not (although she is mentioned) the fearsome Aunt Agatha.
Thankfully, Sam Harrison is more than up to the challenge of playing more than twenty roles, and does so with style, understanding and remarkable physicality. His Bertie is perhaps camp rather than mannered, but always endearing. Wooster needs to have an essential innocence and vulnerability, which is at odds with any excess of campery. As Jeeves, Harrison is perhaps less convincing, and is rather a background character here despite featuring in the title. It’s still a remarkable tour-de-force by this clever actor.
The production is lavish and wholly unexpected at a one-person play. The actor enters reading the book, but this is soon forgotten as the characters emerge, although the actor stays in present day clothing for the first act. As each setting changes, it is announced on the set as a surtitle and the whole set changes through video projection. The pictures on the wall transform, a different view is seen through the window, and even the colours of the walls mutate.
It’s a remarkable use of video projection and set design by Caite Hevner, but these visual transformations tend to take the place of the mental pictures conjured up by Wodehouse’s words and Harrison’s performance. Similarly, the occasional interpolation of Harrison’s recorded voice, although well done technically, tends to devalue his ability to switch voice rapidly during his live performance.
There is some confusion between real and mimed objects, presumably the logic being that physical objects are present day and mimed (or projected) ones are from the stories. Most bizarrely, two girl guides burst on stage at one point, as the ASMs make an appearance in order to attach some bunting to lines. They then hang around for a bit and start singing, thus completely wrong-footing the audience who thought they were at a one-person show.
It’s all done very well, but seems misguided when the joy of a one-person show is to see a single performer creating a whole range of people and places. When Bertie mentions his Aunts, for example, we see a whole array of pictures of (AI?) Aunts on the wall, which distracts us just as we are listening to the wonderful Wodehousian description of them.
It’s good to welcome Jeeves (fleetingly) and Wooster back however, although for many of the younger members of the audience, it seemed to be a first, and perhaps slightly baffling encounter.
A welcome return then for Wodehouse aficionados and perhaps a useful introduction for newcomers, this lavish production features a remarkable central performance.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
Jeeves Takes Charge plays at Charing Cross Theatre until 6 September, with tickets available here.
